This Kailua Restaurant Will Take You Back to Dinners at Grandma’s House

Most afternoons you can find Faria chef and co-owner Kawehi Haug prepping in the restaurant’s kitchen alongside her family. Haug’s dad—also the restaurant’s accountant—is scooping bay leaf butter onto dishes for bread baskets while her mom—head of human relations—is making desserts, and her hānai cousins are setting up the dining room and bar. When they finish, they’ll jump into the kitchen with Haug and her longtime business partner, Kim Porter (another hānai cousin), to help peel potatoes and onions. Everything is cooked from scratch at the new Portuguese restaurant in Kailua, Oʻahu.

“It’s like this constant family reunion in here,” Haug says.

In the late 19th century, 12,000 Portuguese immigrants came to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations. Yet Faria, which opened in Kailua in January 2025, is Oʻahu’s first Portuguese restaurant. Haug defines her cuisine as Pacifika Portuguese—a mixed plate of the Portuguese family recipes and local-style dishes she grew up on in Hawaiʻi.

“We get so many Portuguese people who walk in here and are just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is like my grandma’s house,’” Haug says. “We have people in tears at their tables because they taste the food and it reminds them of, you know, their grandma who passed away.”

The interior of Faria is a cozy and beautiful mix between grandma’s house and farmhouse chic.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

Despite being an only child, Haug has a huge family. Two portraits hang above the bar at Faria: her grandmother (second-generation Portuguese) and grandfather (Hawaiian and Portuguese) on her mom’s side—the Farias. Haug’s cooking chops come from watching them cook meals for a household of 32 people. Haug’s mom has seven siblings, all with spouses and kids, and her grandparents made sure everyone’s family traditions—Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese and more—were honored.

“My grandfather cooked a lot of Asian food. He cooked a lot of Hawaiian food because he cooked for the firehouse,” Haug recalls. “So, he was cooking for local palates.”

Since Haug’s dad was in the military, she grew up all over the world. When she was 12, she and her family moved to Germany, and during their time there they visited places in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. And everywhere they went Haug studied the food and culture.

After earning a degree in journalism, she became a reporter and food critic for the Honolulu Advertiser. Because of the soulfulness of Haug’s cooking, you’d never know that she hasn’t been cooking her whole life. It wasn’t until the Honolulu Advertiser closed in 2010 that she began her career in hospitality, first with her former bakery, Let Them Eat Cupcakes in Chinatown, then with a successful 11-month run with her second venture, Bethel Street Tap Room. That businesses abruptly closed in 2016 after a bad business deal. After that, Haug took over Hukilau in the Executive Centre.

The Portuguese bean soup is Haug’s grandmother’s recipe.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

It was at Hukilau where Haug’s vision for Faria began to grow. On the weekends, Haug and her family would convert the 166-seat Hukilau restaurant into a Faria pop-up, making vinha d’alhos and her family’s lau lau stew recipe. But when the Covid pandemic hit, shuttering Hukilau’s doors, she decided not to renew her lease. A few years later, fate (and Haug’s Realtor) came knocking: The old Champa Thai site in Kailua was available to lease. Haug, who was born in Kailua, knew she had found a home for Faria.

In just five months, she and her family flipped Champa Thai into what you see today—a cozy and beautiful mix between grandma’s house and farmhouse chic. Haug’s mom reupholstered dining room chairs from Hukilau with black and white palaka. Haug hung family portraits all over and sourced old furniture on Facebook Marketplace, like a 40-year-old dining room table from a plumeria farmer in Hawaiʻi Kai. A koa wood six-top belonged to Haug’s grandmother. She says her Faria family had been eating around it since her mom was 2.

But admiring the look of the place isn’t all you’ll be doing at Faria. You’ll also be eating. A lot. The menu here boasts 40 items, with portions fit for local families. Portuguese staple ingredients like paprika, garlic, onions, white vinegar and bay leaf dominate the menu.

“[Bay leaf] is like the number one Portuguese ingredient. I have a bay leaf tattoo,” Haug says as she rolls up her right sleeve.

The salt cod and potato fritters with herb mayo—a Portuguese Brazilian dish is a standout.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

The Portuguese bean soup, which Haug explains isn’t really Portuguese but a local variation, is from her grandmother’s recipe. “She was very adamant that you don’t add macaroni,” Haug recalls, because it ruins the original.

The pao doce is also a local version—sweet, squishy bread to mop up what’s left on your plate. And it’s hard not to think of Foodland, Hawaiʻi’s local grocery store chain, when ordering the salt and vinegar chicken wings. Instead of using a dry rub like Foodland, Haug makes a buffalo-style sauce with butter, dried piri piri chiles from Portugal and lots of vinegar.

For bacalhau (salt cod) dishes, Haug salt cures fresh cod herself. The salt cod and potato fritters with herb mayo—a Portuguese Brazilian dish—is a standout, but the most popular dish is the bacalhau a bras. For Haug’s version she prepares a gratin of bacalhau cut into chunks, versus shredding it, and sliced potatoes, rather than mashed. She then tops the dish with sliced boiled eggs (which she says the Portuguese love) and olives for salinity.

Faria’s tin fish board.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

The tin fish board takes up the entirety of a four-top table. Wild-caught sardines gaze out of peeled back lids, surrounded by a loaf of fresh pao da lareira, fresh cucumber slices, pickled onion, focaccia and a shrimp chip the size of a catcher’s mitt. The homey sardine skillet and oxtail caldo verde go well with all the leftover bread.

For a celebratory dessert, groups of four or larger can preorder the Suspiros For Days—a thin 4-foot-long meringue filled with cream and overflowing with fresh fruit and lilikoʻi coulis. Haug says meringue is very popular in Portugal, but to appeal to local palates, she tones down the sugar—a lot—and keeps it fruit-forward. 

The star dessert, however, is the pasteis de nata, which Haug says she began perfecting long before Faria opened. She guesses she tested it about 400 different ways before getting it right and recommends pairing the crisp laminated dough wrapped custard with a 10-year Fonseca Tawny Port served in a port sipper.

The star dessert is the pasteis de nata.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

Haug created the wine list too, focusing on wines from Portugal first, then Spain and Italy, plus a California chardonnay and pinot noir. The Fria Frio Vinho Verde goes with everything on the menu. Vinho Verdes (green wines) are inexpensive, lower in alcohol, neutral in flavor and have just the slightest spritz. They are made to pair with the soups and stews of Portugal.

Once service starts, Haug’s family jumps into yet another set of roles. Mom expedites food coming out of the kitchen, Potter and Haug cook, and Dad works the dining room. It’s lively and loud here, the way it’s intended to be—a cozy space where friends and loved ones can talk story and hang out, just like at Haug’s family home.

“One night we saw in the cameras that my dad was walking around to, like, four different tables singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to people in Portuguese,” Haug says. “Some dude who was here as a guest happened to have his ʻukulele, and so they were just like ‘troubadouring’ around. I was like this place is crazy, but it’s awesome.”

306 Kuʻulei Road, Kailua, fariahawaii.com.

Sarah Burchard is a longtime contributor to HAWAIʻI Magazine.